Story ran on Tuesday, December 04 2001

Georgetown neighbors will finally see the county try to fix drainage problems that have been irritating them for more than a decade.

Jenna Isaacson photo

Signs of flooding taint a closet in the home of Byron and Cathy Fulkerson in Georgetown. The county plans to fix drainage problems in the area.

County commissioners favor the request.

"Well, it’s long overdue," Georgetown resident Joe Cady said yesterday. "Thank God for Santa Claus waking the county commissioners up."

Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller said yesterday that she’s "pretty confident" the request will be approved. "The likelihood of its being changed is pretty slim."

Last June, Miller and public works Director David Mink met with Georgetown residents, who complained about flooded basements during spring storms and blamed much of the problem on surrounding development. They also urged the county to repair the neighborhood’s streets.

Cady during that meeting called Georgetown "the bastard child" of the county. And Angela Howard, president of the Georgetown Neighborhood Association, listed residents’ complaints and the responses, or lack thereof, from county officials since 1991.

"Our concern is that we have no response or negative response," Howard said at the time.

Yesterday, however, Howard said, she is "overjoyed" to hear that the county plans to address drainage problems.

"It’s like, wow!" she said. "That’s great. … I’m very happy about the outcome. It does help to talk to representatives and let the problem be known."

Howard said some Georgetown residents had been thinking of building concrete walls to fend off excess water. The county’s plan, however, will make that unnecessary, she said.

The county also has a long-range plan to improve streets in Georgetown but will focus on storm-water problems first.

"It’s important to address storm water first," Mink said. "You fix the pipes, and then you fix the roads."

The Public Works Department in a preliminary study estimated the total cost of fixing Georgetown’s roads could be as high as $1.3 million.

Other highlights of the public works department’s $13 million budget request include:

● $120,000 to rebuild and pave Benson Road between the Sturgeon city limits and Route RR.

● $750,000 to rebuild and pave Academy Road west of Route B and northeast of Columbia.

● $100,000 to use fiber-reinforced polymer to repair bridges on Richland and Olivet roads.

● $460,838 to improve 19 sections of road that frequently wash out.

● $80,000 to chip and seal 22 miles of roads.